By Roz Rogoff
About this blog: In January 2002 I started writing my own online "newspaper" titled "The San Ramon Observer." I reported on City Council meetings and other happenings in San Ramon. I tried to be objective in my coverage of meetings and events, and...
(More)About this blog: In January 2002 I started writing my own online "newspaper" titled "The San Ramon Observer." I reported on City Council meetings and other happenings in San Ramon. I tried to be objective in my coverage of meetings and events, and saved my barbs for my Commentary page. I had some political differences with the City Council at that time and particularly with the majority dubbed "The Gang of Three," by the San Ramon Valley Times. In 2003 new Council members were elected and the Council was more balanced and fiscally conservative, but I continued to write the Observer until 2009. At that point I decided I wanted to concentrate on my commentaries. So I requested a meeting with the editor and publisher of the Danville Weekly about taking over the San Ramon Observer. My timing was very apropos since the parent company, Embarcadero Media, was planning to release an online San Ramon Express that April. I was offered a "blog" under the name "San Ramon Observer" for my commentaries. I like to inform residents about what is happening in San Ramon, especially on city government and local politics. When I don't have anything to write about on those topics, I just write about anything I am doing or thinking about.
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Some of my readers might be wondering where I've been. I haven't posted a new blog in almost three weeks. Well I sold my house and moved to Villa San Ramon, which is a very nice senior retirement place. I have a small, but comfortable, one-bedroom apartment on the first floor. It has a small kitchen, which is quite complete even though they serve three meals a day in the Dining Room. Two meals are included in the monthly rent.
The rent is high, especially since I didn't qualify for the subsidized rent. This is a very upscale place. It's well-run and convenient to everything I already do in San Ramon. For some strange reason I feel like I moved much further away than a mile from my house. It feels like a completely different city.
I tried riding my tricycle over to the Walmart Shopping Center today. I got a block past the Fire Station on Alcosta Blvd. and gave up. The trike is easy to ride but I had a phone installer coming in the afternoon, so I had to go back.
The phone guy put in a land line with my old home phone number and a DSL for my computer. Now I can write and send my blog from my apartment instead of having to go to the computer room at the Villa. There's only one computer there and it is still running Windows XP.
I may be one of the younger people here. I'm only 73, which is young for a place like this. My mother moved into a similar place in Maine 17 years ago when she was 83. My brother phoned this afternoon to tell me that mother found a lump in her breast. Her Doctor recommends doing nothing because at her age surgery could be too risky. I agreed. Mother turned 100 in January.
I haven't hooked up my TV yet. When I lived at home I used to stay up watching late night talk shows and sleep until noon. Now I go to be early and wake up for breakfast in the dining room at 8 am.
There's a lot of walking here and almost everyone uses a rollator, one of those 4 wheeled walkers with a seat. My old silver hooped walker isn't smooth enough for the long corridors so I ordered a rollator from the Community Care Pharmacy. It came today and it's like a Cadillac next to my old-fashioned walker.
I remember when my Grandmother was in a nursing home. She hated it. Those places were terrible 60 years ago. This place is like a 5 star hotel. With the baby-boomer generation moving into their senior years, services for us old folks keep getting better and better.
